Neutrinos and gravitational waves? That's so 20th century. We should be looking for quantum signaling and psi emissions! After all, our devices for detecting quantum signals and psi emissions are just as advanced as our devices for detecting neutrinos and gravitational waves!
Honestly, there isn't a European country that does, or would want to, work as long or for as little recompense (monetary or otherwise) as the US does.
Well, Europeans may not "want" to, but they certainly do, given how much lower their disposable incomes actually are.
Europeans view work as... the necessary evil to earn money to enjoy the rest of your life
And Americans view work as something that gives purpose and meaning to their life, something that ought to improve society and help their fellow human beings.
Just off the top of my head in the UK, coal miner's strikes,... All resulted in fairer working laws which almost always worked in the favour of the workers, not the employer.
The UK coal miner strikes in the 1980's weren't primarily about working conditions, they were protesting pit closures. And they weren't protesting against capitalist exploitation, they were protesting against a heavily regulated and subsidized industry, asking for even more government handouts for themselves. (I'm not going to deconstruct your other examples, but it ends up being similar.)
I'm extraordinarily anti-union, because it brings my country's services to a halt whenever someone feels there's a grievance... but you can't say for a second that the UK law isn't inherently favourable to the worker's work-life balance
Sure, if you start with the premise that half of your waking hours should be filled with doing stuff you hate. Personally, I think that way of thinking is pathological. I also think it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. But, then, that's why I'm not working in Europe anymore.
Voluntarily, to the tune of, "Either you guys set something up yourselves that is acceptable, or we will do it for you."
You really need to read up on your history. For example, Ford introduced the 40 hour work week and doubled pay in 1914 because he believed it was good for productivity (it was 45 hours before, not exactly slave labor either). In many other industries, working hours were privately negotiated between employers and private sector unions. The FLSA didn't get passed until 1938, and of course even that still leaves working hours largely at the discretion of employers and employees, where it has effectively remained ever since.
That's the kind of incentive that lets a business be nice to its employees; otherwise they just need to all agree that no job offers a work week lower than 70 hours so there can be no shopping around for the workers.
For what possible reason would employers make such an agreement? It makes little difference to an employer whether an employee works 40h or 80h to begin with. And why would a small competitor agree to let is factories sit idle and risk going out of business because a big competitor with deep pockets asks him to enforce some conditions of work that don't make much financial sense to begin with?
Municipalities are imploding under the weight of impossible to keep promises.
Municipalities are imploding under the weight of promises they made as employers to their own employees: generous pension benefits, medical care, vacation time, etc.
And now you advocate forcing private employers to make similar promises to their employees. The consequence will predictably be that private employers will "implode" as well.
Reality is a harsh mistress.
Indeed it is. And reality says that just because you want everybody to have generous pension, health, and vacation benefits, that's not workable.
And when society has to pick up the slack in government benefits for the employees of employers cutting costs like this, constantly? What then?
Society is already paying for this stuff: Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, ACA, etc. That is the cause, not the consequence, of employers dropping their own benefits.
Furthermore, who should pay for it? Neither the employer nor "society". What kind of health insurance, retirement, etc. I choose to pay for should be up to me and nobody else.
He wasn't "waiting for offers"; his applications for university positions had all been turned down (not a big deal given how young he was). It wasn't until nearly a decade later that he became a professor. He also wasn't an "expert witness" for the patent office, he was a regular employee ("technical expert third class").
The threat to Academia is our non-stop budget cuts driven by right wing politics
If only that were true. In reality, the federal budget has been increasing pretty steadily for a long time, and so has the deficit. US R&D funding has remained relatively constant as percentage of GDP and grown substantially in real terms. Public funding for higher education has also been increasing.
That's in contrast to countries like Germany, which really have cut their budget and lowered their debt. Apparently, modern, progressive nations can do that without self-destructing, but the US, which people like you claim faces "non-stop budget cuts driven by right wing politics" is incapable of achieving such a feat.
But apparently the crazy political-theists say too much science pisses off their invisible friend
True, if by "political-theists" you mean the crony capitalists in both parties. "Basic research" is basically just funded by the NSF and the NIH, and they make up maybe a quarter of all federal R&D spending. If we wanted more basic research, it would be easy to shift funding from DOD, NASA, DOE, and USDA over to NSF and NIH.
The fact that business decided to use them as gatekeepers is the fault of business.
Actually, it's no "fault" at all. A four year college education may only be the equivalent of a few weeks of on-the-job training, but it's a few weeks that the employer doesn't have to pay for, given all the public subsidies of college educations.
Like any law or ruling, there are certainly loopholes or workarounds. An obvious one would be to obtain a [small] office near/in the customer premises. Then the long commute is to this assigned business office, with a short hop to the customer.
That's not a "workaround", that's just a different situation. In particular in that situation, the employee can simply move close to the office.
However, the EU is especially keen to entrench "employee rights" and thereby lessen competition for employees. If you cannot fire, you will be very reluctant to hire. So the EU is stuck with regs upon regs.
Yes, that's a pretty good characterization of what's going on. And the more bad regulations they adopt, the more they need to create to fix the problems of previous bad regulations. Unfortunately, the US is starting to spiral down the same hole.
Seriously, are Americans REALLY this fucking stupid in general?
Actually, the difference is much simpler. Europeans by and large view themselves as wage slaves at the mercy of big corporations and governments, with little autonomy or control over their lives. So, if they want to work more or less, it requires government intervention. Americans, by and large, still view themselves as autonomous actors and their labor as something valuable that employers compete for.
Let us abolish vacation time, sick time, maternity leave, weekends, nights, and all those other ridiculous "personal" things.
Abolishing legal requirements to provide those benefits is not the same as abolishing those benefits. After all, most of those benefits were not imposed by government, they were pioneered by businesses voluntarily.
The real welfare queens in our society are employers, and always have been.
"Welfare" refers to receiving government money for no work.
When employers "expect" you to commute to work "for free", that's not "welfare"; it's the contract you negotiated with your employer. If you don't like the conditions or the salary, don't take the contract. You are a legally competent adult, aren't you? And you do think that your work is valuable?
They lose interest in it and it fades away. Eventually it will be shut down.
Projects like this exist for two reasons: (1) someone can make a profit on it and/or (2) someone takes a personal interest in it. Given all the legal b.s. that publishers, authors, librarians, and self-proclaimed Internet activists have thrown at anybody trying to put books online, it's hardly surprising when companies stop running such businesses. And all that legal b.s. also means that many people who would otherwise have a personal interest just say "fuck this" and move on to projects where they are subjected to less abuse.
HTRC serves a community interested in research and educational computational investigation of the HathiTrust corpus. HTRC serves a community interested in research and educational computational investigation of the HathiTrust corpus.
And it ain't going to remain free:
With the help of our advisory board, advice from the HathiTrust Board of Governors, and the input of researchers, the HTRC will develop a set of policies with a predictable set of prices
This will likely end up being bulk payments from other academic institutions; groups like these have neither the time nor the interest for dealing with mere humans. In addition, their focus is on data mining and text mining, not easy access by humans.
This is an effort by academics for academics. It's not for bringing books to the masses. And I doubt the project is going to be around that long either.
Really, having a relationship with someone at work is grounds for termination?
No, having a bad relationship with one of your coworkers is: she had an affair with a married man and the affair ended badly and she ended up hating the man. At that point, the employer asks the question: which of these two employees is more valuable and works better with the rest of the team?
I know lots of couples who work together, some of them even married.
And as long as it doesn't affect their work and their ability to work together, it's fine. Sometimes it may even help. But if it affects their work negatively, it's reasonable for an employer to fire one or both.
I doubt termination due to a consensual relationship would stand up in court in any jurisdiction with reasonable employment laws.
Well, fortunately, the US doesn't have "reasonable employment laws" in your fucked up sense; the US, at least in principle, leaves it up to employers who they want to hire and fire.
Having an affair does not make anyone more or less credible when making claims.
But having an affair with a superior and then filing a sex discrimination lawsuit when the promotion doesn't happen casts doubts on her motivations and allegations.
However, merely fioring someone for doing something stupid is not sexual discrimination.
Correct, which is why at that point, sexual discrimination becomes irrelevant to the firing.
There are much simpler explanations than the one implied by the article, namely that "playing music causes scientific ability" or even "musical and high level scientific ability have a common cause". The Nobel Prize is not awarded based on objective scientific criteria, it is a judgment call by a bunch of primarily upper middle class European men steeped in European bourgeois values, which include that educated and smart people ought to play an instrument. And at that level, many of the scientists involved know each other personally, and music is a social activity that allows people to get to know each other more. It wouldn't be surprising if the Nobel Prize committee simply had a bias towards awarding prizes to scientists who they know to play music or who they actually play music with.
Are you a lawyer that deals with employment issues? Do you have any data?
Yes I do have data. The data is that 90% of courts of law and juries determine that, after lawyers have made their case, they couldn't find sufficient evidence to convict.
See, what matter isn't what some poster on Slashdot has heard one lawyer say some time, what matters is actually what courts determine.
By the way, having a consensual relationship with someone is the opposite to sexual harassment and discrimination. You can have one and still be the victim of the other. Duh.
Having a consensual relationship with someone at work shows bad professional judgment and should be sufficient reason for termination. At that point, the question of sex discrimination becomes irrelevant.
Slashdot Mirror
Neutrinos and gravitational waves? That's so 20th century. We should be looking for quantum signaling and psi emissions! After all, our devices for detecting quantum signals and psi emissions are just as advanced as our devices for detecting neutrinos and gravitational waves!
Well, Europeans may not "want" to, but they certainly do, given how much lower their disposable incomes actually are.
And Americans view work as something that gives purpose and meaning to their life, something that ought to improve society and help their fellow human beings.
The UK coal miner strikes in the 1980's weren't primarily about working conditions, they were protesting pit closures. And they weren't protesting against capitalist exploitation, they were protesting against a heavily regulated and subsidized industry, asking for even more government handouts for themselves. (I'm not going to deconstruct your other examples, but it ends up being similar.)
Sure, if you start with the premise that half of your waking hours should be filled with doing stuff you hate. Personally, I think that way of thinking is pathological. I also think it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. But, then, that's why I'm not working in Europe anymore.
It will feature Three Dimensional Graphics, never seen before anywhere.
The Third Dimension... another Apple Innovation!
But I do know that it will be shiny and have only one button!
You really need to read up on your history. For example, Ford introduced the 40 hour work week and doubled pay in 1914 because he believed it was good for productivity (it was 45 hours before, not exactly slave labor either). In many other industries, working hours were privately negotiated between employers and private sector unions. The FLSA didn't get passed until 1938, and of course even that still leaves working hours largely at the discretion of employers and employees, where it has effectively remained ever since.
For what possible reason would employers make such an agreement? It makes little difference to an employer whether an employee works 40h or 80h to begin with. And why would a small competitor agree to let is factories sit idle and risk going out of business because a big competitor with deep pockets asks him to enforce some conditions of work that don't make much financial sense to begin with?
Municipalities are imploding under the weight of promises they made as employers to their own employees: generous pension benefits, medical care, vacation time, etc.
And now you advocate forcing private employers to make similar promises to their employees. The consequence will predictably be that private employers will "implode" as well.
Indeed it is. And reality says that just because you want everybody to have generous pension, health, and vacation benefits, that's not workable.
Society is already paying for this stuff: Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, ACA, etc. That is the cause, not the consequence, of employers dropping their own benefits.
Furthermore, who should pay for it? Neither the employer nor "society". What kind of health insurance, retirement, etc. I choose to pay for should be up to me and nobody else.
He wasn't "waiting for offers"; his applications for university positions had all been turned down (not a big deal given how young he was). It wasn't until nearly a decade later that he became a professor. He also wasn't an "expert witness" for the patent office, he was a regular employee ("technical expert third class").
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
If only that were true. In reality, the federal budget has been increasing pretty steadily for a long time, and so has the deficit. US R&D funding has remained relatively constant as percentage of GDP and grown substantially in real terms. Public funding for higher education has also been increasing.
That's in contrast to countries like Germany, which really have cut their budget and lowered their debt. Apparently, modern, progressive nations can do that without self-destructing, but the US, which people like you claim faces "non-stop budget cuts driven by right wing politics" is incapable of achieving such a feat.
True, if by "political-theists" you mean the crony capitalists in both parties. "Basic research" is basically just funded by the NSF and the NIH, and they make up maybe a quarter of all federal R&D spending. If we wanted more basic research, it would be easy to shift funding from DOD, NASA, DOE, and USDA over to NSF and NIH.
Actually, it's no "fault" at all. A four year college education may only be the equivalent of a few weeks of on-the-job training, but it's a few weeks that the employer doesn't have to pay for, given all the public subsidies of college educations.
That's not a "workaround", that's just a different situation. In particular in that situation, the employee can simply move close to the office.
Yes, that's a pretty good characterization of what's going on. And the more bad regulations they adopt, the more they need to create to fix the problems of previous bad regulations. Unfortunately, the US is starting to spiral down the same hole.
Actually, the difference is much simpler. Europeans by and large view themselves as wage slaves at the mercy of big corporations and governments, with little autonomy or control over their lives. So, if they want to work more or less, it requires government intervention. Americans, by and large, still view themselves as autonomous actors and their labor as something valuable that employers compete for.
No, it's not:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
What "cost" does it impose on you if I choose to work 80 hours?
Abolishing legal requirements to provide those benefits is not the same as abolishing those benefits. After all, most of those benefits were not imposed by government, they were pioneered by businesses voluntarily.
No, it shouldn't be. But in the US, it actually effectively is.
"Welfare" refers to receiving government money for no work.
When employers "expect" you to commute to work "for free", that's not "welfare"; it's the contract you negotiated with your employer. If you don't like the conditions or the salary, don't take the contract. You are a legally competent adult, aren't you? And you do think that your work is valuable?
Projects like this exist for two reasons: (1) someone can make a profit on it and/or (2) someone takes a personal interest in it. Given all the legal b.s. that publishers, authors, librarians, and self-proclaimed Internet activists have thrown at anybody trying to put books online, it's hardly surprising when companies stop running such businesses. And all that legal b.s. also means that many people who would otherwise have a personal interest just say "fuck this" and move on to projects where they are subjected to less abuse.
They don't exist to serve you, they exist to serve academia; read their web page: https://www.hathitrust.org/htr...
And it ain't going to remain free:
This will likely end up being bulk payments from other academic institutions; groups like these have neither the time nor the interest for dealing with mere humans. In addition, their focus is on data mining and text mining, not easy access by humans.
This is an effort by academics for academics. It's not for bringing books to the masses. And I doubt the project is going to be around that long either.
No, having a bad relationship with one of your coworkers is: she had an affair with a married man and the affair ended badly and she ended up hating the man. At that point, the employer asks the question: which of these two employees is more valuable and works better with the rest of the team?
And as long as it doesn't affect their work and their ability to work together, it's fine. Sometimes it may even help. But if it affects their work negatively, it's reasonable for an employer to fire one or both.
Well, fortunately, the US doesn't have "reasonable employment laws" in your fucked up sense; the US, at least in principle, leaves it up to employers who they want to hire and fire.
But having an affair with a superior and then filing a sex discrimination lawsuit when the promotion doesn't happen casts doubts on her motivations and allegations.
Correct, which is why at that point, sexual discrimination becomes irrelevant to the firing.
There are much simpler explanations than the one implied by the article, namely that "playing music causes scientific ability" or even "musical and high level scientific ability have a common cause". The Nobel Prize is not awarded based on objective scientific criteria, it is a judgment call by a bunch of primarily upper middle class European men steeped in European bourgeois values, which include that educated and smart people ought to play an instrument. And at that level, many of the scientists involved know each other personally, and music is a social activity that allows people to get to know each other more. It wouldn't be surprising if the Nobel Prize committee simply had a bias towards awarding prizes to scientists who they know to play music or who they actually play music with.
Yes I do have data. The data is that 90% of courts of law and juries determine that, after lawyers have made their case, they couldn't find sufficient evidence to convict.
See, what matter isn't what some poster on Slashdot has heard one lawyer say some time, what matters is actually what courts determine.
Having a consensual relationship with someone at work shows bad professional judgment and should be sufficient reason for termination. At that point, the question of sex discrimination becomes irrelevant.
Because having a consensual affair with a coworker ought to be, by itself, sufficient justification for firing someone.
In addition, it shows bad judgment and a propensity for mixing sex with work on her part.